


the truth on our lips

by violetholdsme



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Crying, Declarations Of Love, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Engagement, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Hugs, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetholdsme/pseuds/violetholdsme
Summary: When Hongseok finds evenhimselfdistrustful of his own words, he mirrors Jinho’s truths with truths of his own that didn't have to slip from his lips.(An epilogue to "liar of mine," told from Hongseok's point of view.)
Relationships: Jo Jinho | Jino/Yang Hongseok
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	the truth on our lips

**Author's Note:**

> i recommend that you read this with lover of mine by 5sos playing on loop in the background (if you want to sob like i did)
> 
> this is an epilogue to my previous oneshot, [liar of mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28652742), and would probably be easier to understand if you've read that one first, but i guess it could kind of stand alone as well :)
> 
> enjoy~!

The figure out on the balcony swayed lightly, in tune with the cool evening wind. The aura about him seemed a stark contrast to every object and pattern surrounding his faint silhouette, and yet he chose to command the atmosphere just as much as he let it command him. It was nothing short of wonderful, a sight that one might never be able to get used to.

It’s the sight that Hongseok observes as he steals glances at his fiancé through the sliding glass door, a deadly combination of fleeting and longing. Jinho was out on the balcony holding a wine glass in his hand without sipping, seemingly happier to get lost in an evening daydream instead of the liquid’s bitter taste. Hongseok had gone inside to bring the bottle in along with its temptations, fetch them both some water instead to feel something purer on their tongues.

It was two months before their wedding, and it had been two months as well since the night they started to fall apart. 

Yet, strange as it was, Hongseok doesn’t think that they _did_ fall apartーnot in the slightest. On the contrary, he only found it more immaculately strange, everything that was unspoken between the two of them. Jinho didn’t look at him with nearly as much contempt as Hongseok thought he deserved in the morning after they both came face to face with all of his lies. Jinho only seemed to remember the way they touched each other, spoke with their hands and lips and the rest of their bodies and Jinho scarcely spoke of Hongseok’s deceit again after all was said and done. But Hongseok would’ve been hard pressed to believe that Jinho had forgotten at all about the pain, and it was the thing that clawed at his heart the most. 

Hongseok thinks about it as he walks back out towards the balcony, eyeing their expensive furniture and luxurious apartment and thinking about all that the wealth had cost him, all that it had cost the _both_ of them. Hongseok always felt a sting behind his eyes whenever he thought about the fact that he had lured Jinho into this ruse of a marriage, a false arrangement for the sake of their riches and their names. And yet he stayedーJinho had said nothing more about it after the fact and he fucking _stayed_ ーand Hongseok has no idea how the other man had managed such grace, granted him such underserved kindness. There’s a pang in his chest as he slides the door open to the balcony only to catch Jinho humming to himself, a soft smile on his lips that Hongseok doesn’t know where he gets the strength to still show him. But he does, and it makes Hongseok smile back, and the bottle of water in his hand would’ve fallen out of his grasp if his fiancé hadn’t taken it from him first. The slight brush of their skin after Jinho had taken the water was enough to bring Hongseok back down to reality, and the smile on his face remained as the voices in his head dissipated.

“Did you enjoy the dinner, then?” Hongseok asked, still standing beside the sofa.

Jinho laughed lightly, looking up at him with faint light in his eyes, and Hongseok thinks it’s a veil of brightness that could never have been managed by anyone but him.

“I did,” Jinho responded, taking a sip of his water. “But you don’t need to do these things for me, you know.”

Hongseok eyes the plates in front of them, cleared of the food he had cooked for the both of them to eat together out on their balcony where the cool breeze could touch their skin. Jinho always tells him there’s no need for it, that he’ll be content with the simplest of things and that Hongseok didn’t need to make too much of an effort to keep him satisfied. Jinho says he’s content, he never complains. Sometimes, Hongseok wished that he would, because he deserved it after Hongseok put him through hell. But Jinho told him he was enough like it was the truth, and Hongseok still never relented in his efforts to give him more.

“Of course I do. I like seeing you happy like this.”

See, the truth wasーHongseok had done everything he could from the very beginning to give Jinho a comfortable life when they began living together, after they started wearing matching rings on their fingers as a symbol of an empty promise. He began doing it out of guilt, some kind of compensation for the fact that he could give Jinho everything as a fiancé or a husband except for _love._ But soon, he realized, right when he was too far gone to come back, that the guilt was at the back of his mind and overshadowed by something more intense, a need to protect or care or watch over, and Hongseok found himself devoted to the other man in a way that he had never known devotion before. Soon enough it became like routine, like muscle memoryーto make sure that Jinho was cared for, kept safe, made happy, to let Jinho’s face be the one that Hongseok always searched for in a crowd.

Perhaps he feels that it’s all he can do. Hongseok came to realize just how much he hurt Jinho with his lies when his fiancé started coming home just to fall into his arms and fall apart; Hongseok had watched Jinho sob and break before him more times than he can count. Hongseok wanted so bad to let himself do the same, let regret consume him, but he knew he didn’t deserve it. And he knew that Jinho deserved much better, much more.

“Come stand with me,” Hongseok said, walking over to the balcony’s edge, keeping a stretched out hand within reach. “Let’s look at the sky.”

“I’m tipsy,” Jinho said, his light laugh echoing his sentiments. “You can talk to me from there.”

Hongseok laughed at Jinho’s blatant admittance, and thinks it’s quite, very much, like _him_ ; Jinho was never one for lies, not like Hongseok knew himself to be, and it was always kind and innocent and too much for Hongseok to not feel guilty about accepting. Jinho always wore his heart on his sleeve; whether he was joyful or sad or angry he bore it all to Hongseok without a second thought, as if he hadn’t betrayed his trust more times than anyone could count. Jinho was the first of them to say _I hate you_ to the other when they first met, but also the first to say _I love you_ when they struggled their hardest to hold on to each other. He meant it and he said it over and over again, even though Hongseok only needed to hear it once to know it was truer than anything else in the universe.

When Hongseok finds even _himself_ distrustful of his own words, he mirrors Jinho’s truths with truths of his own that didn't have to slip from his lips. Whether he was tongue-tied or a liar, Hongseok had always found that his actions spoke for him far louder than the words from his tongue. They told their truths in opposite ways, and Hongseok was slowly learning to navigate the lines that both separated and intertwined them. When Jinho cried, Hongseok held him. When Jinho was tired from work, Hongseok took the coat from his shoulders and ushered him to a bathtub somehow already filled with hot water and bubbles. When Jinho told him stories in their living room when they couldn’t sleep, Hongseok listened, even as his eyelids started to fall, and when Jinho finally followed then Hongseok would carry him to bed. When Jinho loved him, Hongseok knew he loved him backーbut he would kiss him instead, in place of words that had failed him much too often, and he would hope it was enough. He would hope that Jinho knew it was honest, that Hongseok wanted it to be nothing but.

“You know,” Hongseok began, still looking out at the night sky in front of him, “our wedding is in two months.”

“Hmm. Time flies.”

“Have you thought about what I said?” Hongseok turned back to face Jinho, seeing his confused expression.

“About what?”

“About the wedding,” Hongseok said, before adding timidly, “about _us_.”

A multitude of expressions seem to flash across his fiancé’s face and Hongseok can imagine him recalling that night, one in which they bore painful truths to one another at unknown costs. Jinho takes a moment to consider it before settling contentedly on his answer.

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about it. Everything happened in the heat of the moment, but it’s done and it’s fine and when it comes down to it, I’m staying.”

Jinho says it like it’s final, and Hongseok lets out a sigh. He doesn’t know if it’s one of relief or confusion, but he walks over to where Jinho is still seated anyway, kneeling down in front of him and looking into his eyes. It was a position he found himself in often when he wished for Jinho to open his heart to him; it’s one where Jinho can look down at him instead of the other way around, the complete opposite of how Hongseok probably made him feel when he wasn’t yet quite so guilty about his schemes. Hongseok looks up like it’s natural, smiling at the gaze that greeted him before continuing on.

“Can I ask why, then?”

“What do you mean, _why_?”

“Is it because you love me?”

Jinho’s breath hitched, but he continued anyway, honest as ever. “Yes.”

“Is that enough for you?” Hongseok asked gently.

“Iー” Jinho took a moment to tear his eyes away from the man looking up at him. But he seems to decide soon enough that there was no real point to his senseless justifications, so he simply said what he meant. Just as always. “Yes.”

Hongseok reached up to hold his hand then, stroking the back of Jinho’s palm with his thumb. He knew he had to do more, push himself far past where he was comfortable if he wanted this to work. Hongseok gulped before taking in a breath of air, chest tightening while he tried to form words that could suffice. He wondered if a mouth that only ever told lies and caused hurt could muster up enough courage to say more than two words of the truth. There was only one way to find out, and Hongseok knew it would never be more worth it than it was right now.

“I love you too, you know.” Hongseok’s breath was shaky, but he willed himself to stay sane, never mind the lump in his throat when Jinho replied.

“You don’t have toー”

“It’s true,” Hongseok said, eyes forming enough tears to blur his vision, but not quite yet to spill over.

“You don’t have to say you love me,” Jinho said, squeezing Hongseok’s shaking hand as they held onto each other. “You _don’t hate_ me. There’s a difference.”

Somehow, the nerves left him one by one when those words left his mouth, and Hongseok found himself ready to go on, let himself finally say more, and mean it. 

“Yes, there’s a difference,” he uttered, looking right into his fiancé’s eyes. “I know it well. And I know what I feel, Jinho. I want to prove it to you every day.”

Hongseok knew that there was no other time to do this than now, if he was going to ever do it at all. He was already on his knees anyway. So he pulled out the object in his back pocket, warm from being there the whole night and many nights before it. When he held it out before Jinho, the older man laughed softly, and Hongseok couldn’t help but do the same despite the tears that were threatening to fall just seconds ago.

“Now, what is _this_ , Hongseok?”

“What do you think?” he retorted, a bright smile on his face as he opened the velvet box, revealing the ring inside as it glimmered in its own light.

Jinho let go of Hongseok’s hand to stifle his laugh, but Hongseok couldn’t even mourn the loss. Jinho’s voice was one of the sweetest things he had ever heard.

“Hongseok…” Jinho said, voice breathy with residual laughter. “You know we’re already getting married, correct?”

Hongseok let his expression shift back into something more serious, much more sincere. He braced himself; it wasn’t like he had practiced this in a mirror, or practiced this _at all,_ but he already knew what he needed Jinho to hear. He just needed to _say it_.

“You deserve…” Hongseok paused, trying to find the right words. “You deserve a choice.”

Jinho was suddenly speechless, his expression mirroring his fiancé’s. Hongseok took it as a sign to simply continue on, taking a deep breath and tightening his grip on the velvet box in his palm. He didn’t want Jinho to settle for _just enough._ Hongseok knew him well enough to know he wanted more, that he _deserved_ more, and that was exactly what he said.

“You deserve _this_ ,” Hongseok uttered, gesturing vaguely to what he held in his hand, to his knees touching the floor. “You deserve to know that you’re wanted. No—that _I want you_. You deserve to be asked the question rather than having it forced on you, and you deserve to have someone on their knees letting you know just how much they want you to say yes.”

Hongseok felt his tears fall when he saw that Jinho had done so as well, and he realized belatedly that he was crying at this point, they both were, but he had more to say and he went ahead and said it even through shaky sobs, because he was finally saying something _right._

“And if you do say yes, Jinho, you deserve to have it come from your own lips—because I never want to lose you. You need to know that I want this, too. I want to love you, Jinho. I want to love you just as much as you _want_ me to love you. And your love—I don’t deserve it, not even a fraction of it, but I want it, too.” Hongseok cried, bearing himself in front of Jinho like the other had done so naturally, before. Like Hongseok had never done, not until now. 

“As long as you’ll have me, Jinho, whether or not you want to take my _name_ ,” Hongseok said, finally, completely sure. “All I need you to know is that my _heart_ —it’s already yours.”

Jinho looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, and all the hurt dissipates into nothingness around them both.

Hongseok couldn’t have prepared himself for the lips that met his own, crashing into him as soon as the last words left his mouth. He could taste both of their tears but he couldn’t care less; he simply kissed back, too overcome with emotion to do anything but kiss Jinho and swipe his tears away with his thumb despite the mirroring ones running down his own cheeks. 

Only when Jinho gets off the couch to be level with him on the floor, pulling him into his embrace, does Hongseok realize that he hadn’t even asked the question yet.

“Will you marry me?” Hongseok whispered, staggered through sniffles, more into Jinho’s skin than his ear. He thinks no one can blame him, not when he never thought the two of them would have the chance to hear those words between them. Amidst it all, Jinho understood perfectly.

“Of course.”

It was a bit messier than it needed to be, yes. They were both still crying when Jinho offered him his hand, and Hongseok noticed that the previous ring—the meaningless, empty one given to them by their parents—was already gone, that Jinho likely took it off while they were kissing. Hongseok let out a bright laugh when he took the golden band from its box and let it flaunt its perfect fit on Jinho’s ring finger. Hongseok tried to place kisses on his knuckles but Jinho didn’t take a second look, didn’t seem to care about the gold on his hand because it was nothing compared to the _everything_ that he felt he had when he surged forward to kiss his fiancé—his _lover_ —again. Hongseok let himself drown in it, too, knowing now more than ever that what he felt for Jinho was nothing short of _real._ He knew that Jinho had saved him, in more ways than one. That amidst all of his sins and all of the curses that fell upon his shoulders, Jinho stayed for him. Jinho _loved_ him. Only him.

“I can’t take back all of the lies, all of the pain I’ve caused,” Hongseok sobbed quietly into his lover’s embrace. “I have no right to ask you to forgive me, but I’ll take care of you. I can’t imagine letting you go. Whether we’re happy or frustrated or hopeless, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s you, I’ll love you. I need you.” Hongseok took a breath before repeating his last words, softer and more assured. “I need _you._ ”

Jinho held him tighter.

“You have me, Hongseok.” Jinho said it through sharp breaths that made his chest heave, wracking him simultaneously with pain and relief because this was _theirs_ —finally, truly theirs. “You have me.”

“I’m sorry.” Hongseok blurted out all of a sudden, despite all the times Jinho had told him firmly not to. He needed to say it, needed to _hear himself_ say it, too. Because none of this was anything he deserved. Not by a long shot. Yet here he was, taking it into his hands as Jinho gave it to him freely. “I’m sorry, for everything.”

“ _Shh,_ ” Jinho reassured. “You were forgiven a long time ago.”

Hongseok finally let himself cry fully into Jinho’s shoulder, not knowing what more to say, but knowing he didn’t have to say anything at all. He only heaved his sobs into Jinho’s cardigan and into the sky above them as they held each other on their balcony floor, not caring about how much time was passing around them.

Hongseok recalled how the moments of the evening had started, how he watched Jinho sway with the wind before bringing his fiancé the bottle of water from inside their home. It was ending quite similarly now—only this time, Hongseok was safe in Jinho’s arms while the older man swayed them both gently to a rhythm only they could hear. 

Finally—after all was said and done—they felt more and more like they belonged right where they both were, the longer that they stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> i needed to give them their happy ending :") cry with me in the comments or on [twt](https://twitter.com/violetholdsme?s=20) <3


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